Finding Passage/Scene in Clarissa, or, The History of a Young Lady

[GeorgiannaB]

Hello,

I would be quite grateful if someone could help me find a passage/scene from Clarissa, or, The History of a Young Lady that I have been unable to find, despite using Gutenberg's online text and CTRL+F for key words.
The passage I am searching for is where Robert Lovelace describes to his friend, fellow rake, John Belford, his plans to kidnap and rape Anna Howe on-board a ship, and subsequently abandon Mr. Hickman upon a beach. Following this description, is the part where he describes a fictitious rape trial in which he is the accused for either Ms. Howe's or Clarissa's rape but walks away free of punishment and even praised to an extent. I recall the word ochlocracy, or perhaps another synonym for 'mob-rule' from the previous passage in particular.
I sincerely hope I have not imagined these singular scenes, and that someone may be able to point me to the letter(s) in which they are referenced, as despite all of my fruitless culling of the text, I have had no such luck.

Thank you.

[Jackson Richardson]

I did actually read Clarissa cover to cover a few years back, but I can't claim recall of all the scenes. I can't remember anything like that, although it sounds typical of Lovelace's arrogance.

[OrphanPip]

Not a Clarissa expert, but the comment about the court system acquitting Lovelace does ring a bell but I'm not sure it appears in the first edition. It does sound like it could have been one of Richardson's changes to the third edition, as he felt too many readers were sympathetic to Lovelace and didn't grasp how much of a villain he was. The third and first editions are the most common version of the text out there, I'd try repeating your search by looking for an online copy of the third edition. Clarissa is an unruly monster that was continuously revised by Richardson throughout his life, and many of the older copies out there collate material (while excising other parts of the novel) from multiple editions and don't always specify where sections of the text came from.

[GeorgiannaB]

Not a Clarissa expert, but the comment about the court system acquitting Lovelace does ring a bell but I'm not sure it appears in the first edition. It does sound like it could have been one of Richardson's changes to the third edition, as he felt too many readers were sympathetic to Lovelace and didn't grasp how much of a villain he was. The third and first editions are the most common version of the text out there, I'd try repeating your search by looking for an online copy of the third edition. Clarissa is an unruly monster that was continuously revised by Richardson throughout his life, and many of the older copies out there collate material (while excising other parts of the novel) from multiple editions and don't always specify where sections of the text came from.

Hello,

Thank you for your helpful response. I was not aware that there were three different editions. I have utilized Project Gutenberg's text of Clarissa and searched Google Books for a complete third edition, but with no success. Since I own Penguin Classic's 1986 copy, I have also thought to use Amazon's ability to search inside the book for any term(s) or words associated with these scenes. However, I'm beginning to think that these scenes may have been a chimera of mine, although I have found in an academic article recently a reference to Lovelace's belief that he would be acquitted of rape by a jury of twelve men and his daydream of kidnapping and raping Anna Howe.

[GeorgiannaB]

Fortunately, I have finally found the passage. The letter was omitted in the edition that I own and was instead found in Letter 208 (or Letter 109) of Volume Two of Four of the Everyman's Library copy of the novel.

[Jackson Richardson]

Congratulations!